It's The End Of The Year As We Know It

Well it's New Years Eve and here I am sitting here with a lovely cold glass of white to drink (okay so it's milk..what's your point!?), the kids are all asleep and G is watching a movie. All is calm, all is peaceful and just a little Nelly Furtado on to keep me grooving while I attempt some digiscrapping tonight.

I decided I should attempt to blog a little about our Xmas celebrations before it becomes last years news.
Christmas Day was nice enough, very quiet..in fact so quiet that we went and woke the twins up at 8am as we got bored waiting for them to come open presents. They tore through the mounds of presents in no time flat. Joe really got the hang of presents this year and barely looked at each one before wanting to tear the paper off the next one. He just loves to rip things though is my theory. The girls weren't far behind. After the unwrapping and breakfast I spent the next hour or two painstakingly opening box after box of toys with stupid fiddly wire tags, sticky tape and assorted other methods of torture to stop kids actually getting to their toys.
I think by far Abs fave present was her Bratz Muichiz (a fancy virtual pet really) and she was pretty stoked to get the Bratz PS2 game plus a TV/DVD combo for her room.
Scarlett's fave is a bit harder to tell as she is still going from toy to toy but she does seem to love her pink ELC keyboard from Grandma and Grandad and her Serafina talking cat which I managed to get from Ebay a few months back.
Joe is just happy over so many things, his bucket of dinosaurs, his Buzz Lightyear action figure and his ELC Lift Off Rocket being his main faves for now.
Christmas Day was quiet, we just had my Mum over for an early dinner and we just sat about watching the kids play with their games etc Our big day (well my fave anyhow) is Boxing Day where we get together with our closest friends and neighbours and have a big BBQ. It's always more relaxing and more casual than Christmas Day. The kids loved having conpany out in the garden all day and we had topped up the sand in the sandpit so that got a good work out, along with the trampoline, play gym and anything else they could get outside!
Unfortunately we are now just a week away from Joe and Scarlett's 3rd birthday and I am now in a mad spin trying to get presents for them. It's a hard time of year to be buying stuff as the toy departments are barely stocked so it doesn't matter how good the sale is if they have not much on their shelves.
Today I bit the bullet as we had to get *something* We decided that we would buy trikes mid-year for the twins and just get them something small for their birthday. Joe has a huge friction powered vehicle that I think he is just going to love! Scar is getting a Cloe Bratz doll. I am going to have take all the small pieces away but I know she will love it as I think she was disappointed to get a Barbie rather than a Bratz at Xmas. She took one look at Abbey's 2 new Bratz dolls, glanced in disgust at her Barbie and threw it aside as she lunged for a Bratz doll. In fairness though she has since played with her Barbie but I think she has room for a Bratz doll too.
We are waiting to see how the weather is looking for next weekend before we decide on what we will do for their actual day but are hoping for a trip to the Zoo all going well.

Other than that all is quiet here. We've been shopping at IKEA a couple of times to get some storage both for our CD's and a bookcase for Abs to try and get more space in her room, it's just so small for her now. Hoping to finish moving her room around tomorrow and fingers crossed she will have some room.

We also had one of Abs friends over for a small BBQ the other day and then they all got into a waterfight, was a lovely evening and so I will finish 2006 with some of my fave pics from that night. Oh and Scarlett isn't one for waterfights (or water in general) so no pics of her :)

Happy and Safe New Years Everyone!

Taking it like a man

A Little Bit Soggy

Fireman Joe in Training